Hmmmm...Besides viewing two Naruto movies the only real significant movie I have seen was Akira and it was um.....interesting.do Spirited away (sub version) and howl's moving castle (another sub) qualify? They were pretty good.

Movies are one thing TV series are another. Movies don't carry in jokes along, sometimes they seem compressed version of a really good series, however you can see a movie in 2 or 3 hours, some series run for dozens of hours.

One thing to consider is that everyones tastes are different and are potentially looking for different things... There is comedy, drama, action and probably several other categories.

For comedies, I like the relatively short series, Full metal panic FUMOFU... Especially the bits about Bonta-kun (armoured bear with huge arsenal of weapon including rocket launchers, etc) and the psycho female cop who trashes the police car in the pursuit.. Silly but very fun. There are some references to the Full Metal Panic series, and some in-jokes.

For historical drama I really like Ruroni Kenshin, I have the 22 DVDs of this series. Very interesting take.

For action, Initial D, is quite good action series with a great sound track (at the beginning of the 1st series), but story suffers in the 4th or 5th series. The movie suffered a little but if you have not seen the series the movie might be ok.